


Hold Fast to My Hand and I Will Show You the Way

by Vortaesthetic



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Gruff Grumpy Jello Dad, Nine is a cinnamon roll, Papa!Odo, Star Trek Bookverse, TOO GOOD, Weyoun 9, and his Bat Eared Son, too pure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 18:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11834841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vortaesthetic/pseuds/Vortaesthetic
Summary: It would seem that Odo has accidentally adopted a son.





	Hold Fast to My Hand and I Will Show You the Way

Odo knew the day was already shot to hell when Weyoun decided to miss a couple steps on the staircase at breakfast and pitch himself down onto the landing below by accident.

To be expected, it did not end well. Weyoun had apparently broken his nose at some point in the tumble and he appeared to be on the edge of some sort of meltdown.

“Weyoun. Weyoun, look at me.”

Odo placed his hands firmly on Weyoun’s shoulders, positioning himself directly in front of his face so that all he could see was him. Something in Odo twisted at the sight of the sheer _bewilderment_ on his pale face, at the frenetic pulse fluttering at his throat like a jackhammer. The bridge of the Vorta’s nose had been busted wide open in his fall when his face struck the handrail, a thick red laceration tracing neatly across its width, a grisly-looking nosebleed staining his lips and teeth in a mask of gore.

Nine was jittery and anxious on a normal day, almost to the point of paranoia. How would he handle this? He was making a valiant effort, but Odo knew the man well enough by now that he could read his face and practically feel the panic roiling beneath his skin. The tremors racking through his bones threatened to shake him apart.

“Breathe. You need to breathe or you are going to pass out. The doctor is coming. You are going to be fine. Watch me,” Odo said, trying to smother Weyoun’s barely contained panic with smooth, measured tones. “Breathe like I’m doing. You need to keep yourself together.”

Minutes passed as Odo tried to reign the Vorta back in, Weyoun's hands resting atop the changeling's shoulders as he forced Weyoun to feel to slow motion of his calming breath. After what felt like an eternity, the grayish cast to his skin began to flesh back out into a healthier shade. Odo could see the fog beginning to lift in his arcane eyes, and instead of feeling proud of himself for bringing order to the chaos, all he could feel was relief that things hadn't turned out worse.

There it is again! This damned feeling, this deep-rooted compassion! This craving to hover and build walls around this pathetic, hapless thing that he once found repulsive.

Weyoun’s huge violet eyes locked onto him as he struggled to form words, to try to save some face. “Odo? Odo… my apologies. I’m not terribly… graceful today, ” he mumbled, something self-deprecating coloring his face. His bloody mouth curved into an artfully deployed Sheepish Grin™ to mask his shame, to mask his fear. Odo could read his tells now by instinct. 

Odo had to call into question the strange forces at work in the universe that found him kneeling at the side of a grown man, holding a wad of gauze to his nose and talking him through his fears like a child who quailed at monsters in the dark. At some point, this fuzzy-headed man had become more than just an aide. Sometime after he had created him,  
consulted him, talked to him. Sometime after realizing that he was more than an eager pair of helping hands, he was a silly long-eared man with a passion for collecting knick-knacks and baubles, who had apparently befriended Seventh Rotan'talag and stuck to him like white on rice. Whose dirty little secret is his wish to be able to sing. This wasn't what Founders felt for their servants. There was something paternal about this commitment, a warmth to it that planted within Odo a curious mix of hope and fear.

It mattered to Odo how Weyoun felt, how he grew. If he was fulfilled.

If he hurt. (He does.)

If he feared. (He does.)

If he sorrowed. (He does.)

If he could flourish and grow into what he had to potential to be; full and real, alive and free. (He can. He will. He must.)

“Falling down? Gracefully? Weyoun, I wouldn’t have trusted you if you had,” Odo replied.

Damn it if Weyoun didn't beam at him through a mask of blood after he said that; pleased as punch despite the carnage that was his face that Odo had admitted to trust in him. What was he supposed to do with that? He was so ridiculously pleased by such a small sentiment that he was pitifully grateful and it made Odo's insides churn again. Compassion did not deserve so high a price as that which the Vorta had paid. Paid blindly and repeatedly.

"Don't let it go to your head, now."

The smile didn't drop away at all, though his voice was colored by a nasal muffle as Odo pinched his nose shut with a thick wad of clean white gauze.

"How could it not, Odo?"

Odo felt a surge of emotion at that little admission of pride, that scant cheekiness that hinted at the vastness of the personality that lurked beneath the surface. And in that moment, he realized he was hopeless. This was for keeps. This was for real. He'd taken Weyoun by the wrist and they both walked a path from which there was no turning back.

His legacy would be to adopt every misfit in the quadrant and drag them home with him.

Nerys did always say he would make a fine father.


End file.
